The deepest ground in the SunBorn palette. In Igbo, black is spoken as oji; the word sits close to ọjị, the kola nut broken to open every gathering. Black is where every SunBorn design starts: the ground the pattern is laid on.

Not a bleached white but a warm one, the colour of unpainted cloth in the sun. Ọcha is Igbo for white, and white stands for clarity and a clean start.

The gray of ash after the fire has done its work. Ntụ is what's left when something has burned through: settled and quiet.

Pale ground, like dry-season earth. Aja is Igbo for sand, the soil every foundation is laid on.

Cotton as it comes, before any dye touches it. Owu is the raw material behind every woven cloth in West Africa, the thread before the story.

Midnight blue, the colour of the sky after the last light. Anụnụ is the Igbo word for blue, and this is SunBorn's darkest: the anchor of the Adinkra Collection.

Igwe means the sky. It is also the title given to a traditional ruler, the one who stands closest to it. A pale, open blue, like a clear morning over the savanna.

Mmiri is water: rain, river and the sea between Africa and her diaspora. A deep teal, the colour of water where it runs cool and still.

Ugo is the eagle, and its feather is worn by titled elders as the mark of honor. In some Igbo speech, ugo is also the word for purple itself. Purple was the hardest colour in the ancient world to make and the most restricted to wear. It was the pigment of rulers by law, not by taste. We put it on training wear. Ugo Purple is the ground code of the Sankofa Kinetic Engine.

Eze is the king. Pink on menswear, worn with the confidence of someone who doesn't need permission. Eze and Adaeze are one family: the same pink, the king and the line that follows him.

Ada is the first daughter, eze the king. Where Ugo Purple carries the weight of rule, Adaeze Pink carries the line of succession. It stands for inheritance, not imitation.

Our one Yoruba name. Ṣàngó is the orisha of fire, thunder and lightning. Where the purple is restraint and the pink is lineage, the orange is voltage: the engine running hot.

Ọbara is blood: lineage, kinship, what runs through a family. A deep, serious red, worn close to the heart.

Uhie is the Igbo word for red, one of the core colour words of the language alongside ọcha and oji. Where Ọbara Burgundy is blood kept close, Uhie Red is the colour out loud.

Ndụ is life itself; green in Igbo is akwụkwọ ndụ, the leaf that lives. A bright, growing green, the colour of the first rains.

The deep green of old forest, where the light comes through in pieces. Ọhịa is the bush beyond the village: wild, patient and older than anything built.

An olive-earth green, the colour of a field just before harvest. Ubi is the farm, where work turns into food.